The story about the travelling Amadinda

There is a wonderful story about one of our Amadindas. In the middle of the eighties I was making music together with a black man from Namibia. He had fled his country many years ago for political reasons. He was one of the founder of the liberation movement SWAPO, who wanted to liberate their country from the racist regime. His name is Taona Ngongo. So after many years as refuge in Sweden he decided that he wanted to go back to Namibia and the Kalahari dessert were he was born.

During the time in Sweden his major occupation had been to play, sing and explain about African music to Swedish people. He held hundreds of concerts and workshops, in schools, kindergartens and museums were he often used the Auris Amadinda. When he left for Africa he asked me if I could give him an Amadinda to play the music for his own people. I gave him one to bring along on the trip. Once there he sadly found that his own tribal folks did not play the old music any more. So he took the Auris Amadinda and started to play again and everybody became very happy. Old people started to remember and the young learned anew.
When it was time for him to leave and go back to Sweden again he was asked to leave something behind so that they would not forget nor him or the music he gave back to them. Taona then decided to leave the Auris Amadinda in his home village and there I suppose it still is this very day.